David Wellington Books in Order
Browse David Wellington books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where to start for zombies, vampires, thrillers, and space horror.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
27 books
Monster Island
by David Wellington
2004
Former UN weapons inspector Dekalb leads armed African teenage soldiers into zombie-filled Manhattan to recover medicine and save his daughter. But a newly intelligent undead man is building an army of his own.
Monster Nation
by David Wellington
2004
As the outbreak tears through the American West, a newly risen woman named Nilla wakes with her mind still intact and strange powers growing. Soldiers and survivors scramble to understand what started the end.
Monster Planet
by David Wellington
2006
Years after the outbreak, Ayaan leads a fragile survivor community in Africa while a powerful undead ruler builds an empire. The final battle points back to the source of the plague.
13 Bullets
by David Wellington
2007
Pennsylvania state trooper Laura Caxton is recruited by veteran vampire hunter Jameson Arkeley to investigate a brutal attack. What she finds is a savage, inhuman kind of vampire that does not play by familiar rules.
99 Coffins
by David Wellington
2007
A shattered coffin in Gettysburg suggests one vampire has escaped a buried Civil War army. Laura Caxton must unravel old records and stop the missing monster from raising the rest.
Vampire Zero
by David Wellington
2008
Jameson Arkeley saved the world from vampires, then became one himself. Now Laura Caxton must stop the mentor who taught her everything before he evolves into something even worse.
23 Hours
by David Wellington
2009
Laura Caxton is locked in a maximum-security prison when the oldest vampire in the world arrives to feed. She has less than a day to survive killers, convicts, and an outbreak behind bars.
Frostbite
by David Wellington
2009
Lost in the Arctic wilderness, Cheyenne Clark survives a werewolf attack only to become what she fears. In the frozen dark, hunter and hunted start to look dangerously alike.
Overwinter
by David Wellington
2010
Cursed with lycanthropy, Cheyenne Clark hunts for a way to become human again as winter tightens across the Arctic. But hunters, rival wolves, and the beast inside her are all closing in.
A Thief in the Night
by David Wellington
2011
Malden would rather steal than save the world, but an ancient blade and a new demon threat drag him into the dark. Treasure, betrayal, and buried horrors wait below the surface.
Den of Thieves
by David Wellington
2011
In the crooked city of Ness, clever thief Malden crosses paths with idealistic knight Croy and gets tangled in magic, gangs, and ancient destiny. Street-level scheming grows into something much darker.
Honor Among Thieves
by David Wellington
2011
Malden failed to stop disaster, and now barbarian armies and old friends alike want him dead. With the fate of Ness at stake, trickery may matter more than heroics.
Weaponized
by David Wellington
2011
An undercover reporter investigates a strange new wing of the U.S. military and finds a nightmare version of modern warfare. The story turns the zombie idea into something cold, tactical, and disturbingly plausible.
32 Fangs
by David Wellington
2012
Laura Caxton is battered, hunted, and nearly out of options, but she still wants one last shot at ending Justinia Malvern. The final showdown forces her to pay for everything the war has already taken.
Pass/Fail
by David Wellington
2012
High school senior Jake is thrust into a secret program where each test could shape his future, or end his life. The puzzles turn cruel fast, and failure is not a figure of speech.
Plague Zone
by David Wellington
2012
Librarian Tim Kempfer sees footage of his family being killed in plague-ravaged Seattle and sets out on a revenge mission. To get home, he must cross a collapsing country full of zombies and quarantines.
Rivals
by David Wellington
2012
A brother and sister survive an encounter with something unearthly in the desert and come back changed. Their new powers make them famous, feared, and eventually enemies.
Chimera
by David Wellington
2013
One-armed veteran Jim Chapel hunts escaped super-soldiers from a secret military facility. The chase grows darker when he learns the killers were engineered for a purpose far bigger than murder.
Minotaur
by David Wellington
2013
Jim Chapel tracks a ring smuggling Russian weapons into the United States for domestic terrorists. To stop a larger plot, he has to get close to a billionaire defector who plays every side.
Myrmidon
by David Wellington
2013
Following the trail from Minotaur, Jim Chapel infiltrates a separatist militia to recover contraband Russian weapons. The deeper he goes, the clearer it becomes that the militia leader has plans of his own.
The Hydra Protocol
by David Wellington
2014
Jim Chapel teams up with a Russian operative to stop a forgotten Cold War supercomputer from launching nuclear war. The mission takes them across Eastern Europe and into a buried network of lies.
Positive
by David Wellington
2015
After his mother's infection brands him a possible carrier, Finn is exiled from safe Manhattan into a zombie-ravaged America. His fight to reach a medical center becomes a hard lesson in survival, fear, and human cruelty.
The Cyclops Initiative
by David Wellington
2016
Jim Chapel goes rogue when the hacker he trusts is framed as a terrorist. Hunted by snipers, drones, and U.S. intelligence, he races to uncover a conspiracy before it turns deadly.
The Last Astronaut
by David Wellington
2019
Disgraced astronaut Sally Jansen is pulled back into service when a silent alien object enters the solar system. Its secrets promise first contact, and a nightmare that makes space itself feel hostile.
Paradise-1
by David Wellington
2023
When Earth's first deep-space colony stops answering calls, Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova joins the crew sent to investigate. What they find on Paradise-1 is not silence but horror.
Revenant-X
by David Wellington
2024
Petrova and the crew of the Artemis finally reach Paradise-1 and discover some colonists are still there, only changed beyond recognition. Their search for answers turns into a fight against the dark itself.
Erebus-13
by David Wellington
2026
After escaping Paradise-1, the crew of the Artemis learns the ancient darkness they unleashed is heading for Earth. Petrova must pull rival human factions together for one last desperate stand.
Where should I start?
For zombie apocalypse horror: Monster Island → Monster Nation → Monster Planet
For brutal vampire hunting: 13 Bullets → 99 Coffins → Vampire Zero → 23 Hours
For military techno-thrillers: Chimera → The Hydra Protocol → The Cyclops Initiative
For space horror: The Last Astronaut → Paradise-1 → Revenant-X
For dark fantasy adventure: Den of Thieves → A Thief in the Night → Honor Among Thieves
Author bio
David Wellington was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at Syracuse University and later earned an MFA in creative writing from Penn State. Long before publication, he was the kind of kid who loved science fiction and horror enough to start making stories of his own.
He has said the real spark came when he was six and saw Star Wars. Waiting years for more adventures did not sound reasonable, so he started inventing his own. He also grew up reading horror, with books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub finding their way home from the library, even when adults warned they might be a little much.
The career part came later.
In 2004 he began posting Monster Island online in short, frequent installments. That experiment turned out to be the break he needed. Readers followed along chapter by chapter, the story built momentum, and the novel was picked up for print publication. It is still the clearest starting point for understanding what he does well: speed, pressure, vivid monsters, and a knack for ending scenes at exactly the moment you want one more page.
A lot of readers first meet him through the zombie books, Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet. They are big, nasty, fast-moving apocalypse novels, but they are not just about gore. They also like unusual viewpoints, grim humor, and the unsettling idea that the undead might not be as mindless as everyone hopes.
He took a similarly unsentimental approach to vampires in 13 Bullets and its sequels, including 99 Coffins, Vampire Zero, 23 Hours, and 32 Fangs. Those books follow Pennsylvania state trooper Laura Caxton into a version of vampire fiction that is all sharp teeth, bad odds, and hard choices. He later wrote the Arctic werewolf novels Frostbite and Overwinter, then shifted gears again with the Jim Chapel thrillers and the fantasy trilogy Den of Thieves, A Thief in the Night, and Honor Among Thieves, published under the name David Chandler.
He does not stay in one lane for long.
That range is a big part of the appeal. Wellington likes monsters, but he also likes systems: police work, military chains of command, quarantine lines, prison routines, expedition crews, cities under stress. His stories often ask what happens when those systems break, or when the real danger turns out to be hiding inside them. Even when the setup is wild, the people inside it tend to have jobs to do, rules to follow, and not nearly enough time.
He has also published science fiction as D. Nolan Clark, which fits a writer who seems happiest when he can try a new set of tools.
In more recent years he has leaned further into science fiction. The Last Astronaut brought his horror instincts into a first contact story and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Then Paradise-1 opened the Red Space trilogy, mixing deep-space exploration, locked-room dread, and the creeping feeling that the universe is stranger than anyone planned for.
He lives in New York City with his wife, Elisabeth. After more than twenty books, he still writes with the restless energy of someone who loves genre fiction for its freedom. One book can give you zombies in Manhattan, another can drop you into Arctic moonlight or deep space, but the feeling is familiar. Something is coming apart, people are in over their heads, and turning the page seems like the only sensible move.
Edited by
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